


Above

by emberloey



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: 6 underground au, Fluff, Hitman AU, IDK what this even is TBH, Implied Smut, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, illegal shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21835354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emberloey/pseuds/emberloey
Summary: Numbers were supposed to prevent...well, everything. Especially feelings.Too bad they didn't.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 8
Kudos: 115





	Above

**Author's Note:**

> 6 underground au. based on that new ryan reynolds movie 1872/10 would recommend got it's sO GOOD.
> 
> support the solo project of exo's newest member *dab*
> 
> written in like 4 hours like usual i hope it doesn't suck it's kind of a new style for me?? idk i was writing it to be very fast-paced and vague and shit so i hope it's good and it doesn't make absolutely no sense uwu
> 
> i did this after my last final last night uwu finals: OVER. me: sick and stressed. stream: obsession.

Everything was counted. Breaths. People. Bodies. Pushups. Carbs. Hours.

How many near-death calls he had.

Baekhyun was number 4. He stopped being Baekhyun when he faked his death, tired of existing. He’d been in a hole, and instead of getting out he’d spent years digging himself deeper and deeper until he had no chance.

Not until some fucker who went simply by X showed up in his house, seated casually on his couch and watching the news when Baekhyun got home from work one day.

_ “An opportunity,”  _ he’d said.  _ “You can really do something.  _ Be _ something. Make a difference in this world.” _

The only condition was that Baekhyun would have to kill himself —metaphorically, of course. No contact with anyone from his old life, and he’d be kept out of cities he’d visited before.

_ “No problem. I’ve never left here.” _

_ Here _ used to be a small town just outside of Busan. X transferred him to Seoul after his funeral, after he’d watched an empty casket be buried in front of seven people who barely batted an eye, there mostly out of guilt, which is where he met the rest of the team.

_ “4, meet 94, 85, 59, 61, and 11. They’re the other members of your team.” _

Names were dangerous, X warned him. Names meant you were getting close. Names meant you were  _ feeling _ , and feelings were dangerous.

Feelings could run a mission through the ground. Feelings could complicate things, compromise an important work-only relationship the team was required to keep. They trained together, lived together, worked day in and day out together. They weren’t allowed to get physical. They weren’t allowed to get close.

No names.

Something about 61 struck a chord with Baekhyun, though, from the very first moment he saw him. It was in his eyes, Baekhyun decided that night after tossing and turning in his new bed for over an hour, unable to sleep because of the new environment and strange noises and occasional yell from something Baekhyun didn’t want to wonder about too much. His eyes were too...soft for this.

He and 61 got along well. They had similar senses of humor, Baekhyun discovered quickly, and shared the same taste in movies and music. They tended to stick near each other and, during the few times 61 would let his guard down a bit and smile, and  _ laugh _ , Baekhyun found himself smiling and laughing along with him.

61 was trying too hard to be intense and cold. He was trying too hard, and that left him vulnerable. He must still feel things, despite the job.

Wrong.

_ Wrong, wrong, wrong. _

61 was ruthless. 

Baekhyun grew up doing hapkido, giving him an edge in the team as their best combat specialist, and he found that killing people wasn’t as hard as he’d originally thought. Three weeks with a gun under 85’s sharp eye had him shooting like a professional, and he didn’t miss a shot on his first mission with the team.

It was a good mission. It went smoothly at first, but things started falling apart when they realized their intel had been wrong. There were too many guards. And Baekhyun was trapped.

Baekhyun could barely breathe. He’d been pinned down on a counter with someone straddling his waist, holding him down with both hands around his neck, head bent over the edge of the counter. He’d begged through his earpiece for help, but he’d been expecting none. They had  _ numbers _ .

They were all supposed to be perfectly willing to leave someone behind to complete the mission.

Right as the world was starting to blacken it was washed with red, and it took Baekhyun a second to register the blood on his face at the same time his lungs refilled with oxygen.

The world swam back into focus and he saw 61 push the limp, bleeding body off of him, taking his hand and helping him sit up.

_ “Can you move?” _ He’d asked sharply, voice slightly muffled by the mask covering the lower half of his face.  _ “Can you run?” _

Baekhyun had nodded, still panting as 61 gave him a minute to breathe, taking down each guy who ran into the room with no hesitation, and no misses. One shot each.

Baekhyun wanted to thank him. He hadn’t expected anyone to come and help him, but when he met 61’s eyes he found himself scared into silence. 61’s eyes were cold, and sharp, watching him breathe and the second Baekhyun seemed to return to a sort of normalcy he yanked him off the counter with a short  _ “let’s move.” _

61 handed Baekhyun a spare gun from one of his victims and they’d managed to make it out together right as the rest of the team was getting ready to leave. The car ride back to the base was tense, all because 61, who’d almost been out, had turned back to help Baekhyun.

While the rest of the team went to their individual rooms, 61 followed 11 to their boss’ office for a debrief and, in 61’s case, a telling off for breaking the number one rule.

He had  _ gone back for Baekhyun _ .

Baekhyun wanted to go into the office and listen to what was going on. He felt guilty. His shower was extra long to try and wash all the blood, sweat, and fear off himself, and he dropped by the kitchen to grab an apple on his way back, but when he passed 61’s room the door was still closed and the light still off.

In fact, it was 61 who came to him after the meeting.

“Hey,” 61, freshly showered, leaned against the doorframe of Baekhyun’s room.

“Hi.” Baekhyun sat up and set his book aside. There was a tense sort of silence that Baekhyun broke with a hesitant “you can come in, if you’d like.”

61 took a deep breath and a step forward, softly closing the door behind him after glancing down the hallway.

“I just wanted to check on you. From earlier. Your…” his voice faded and he pointed at his neck.

Baekhyun’s hand rose to his own neck, wincing. The bruising was deep, he knew that. But their doctor had checked him when they got back and determined that no damage was done to his trachea. He’d just have to wait for the swelling to go down.

“I’ll be fine.” Baekhyun crossed his legs on the bed in front of him, hands on his shins. “I want to thank you. You came back for me.”

“I did, yeah.” 61 nodded and crossed his arms. “You’re welcome.”

“Why?”

61 raised an eyebrow.

“That’s the most important rule, and you broke it. Why did you come back for me?”

61 hesitated, letting out another deep breath. Baekhyun saw his eyes soften for barely a moment before hardening again as he straightened up. “It was your first real mission. I didn’t want it to end like that. None of us died in the first one.”

Baekhyun nodded and they fell back into silence. 61 broke it with a soft “goodnight, 4,” and then he slipped out, shutting the door behind him.

The next time it happened it was Baekhyun who went to help 61, leaving his spot because 61 was overwhelmed and Baekhyun was so close to him.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” 61 yelled after everyone else was dead, half with bullet holes through their foreheads and the other half beaten with a variety of knives, forks, and chair legs 61 had gotten his hands on in the dining room.

“Paying it back,” Baekhyun responded, tossing him a gun from one of the dead men after checking the magazine. “Come on. It reeks in here.”

“That can’t happen again.” 61 snapped later, storming into Baekhyun’s bedroom after he’d gotten back from his own chewing out by the boss. “You can’t come back for me.”

_ “You _ came back for  _ me. _ Why can’t I do the same?”

“Because you just...you  _ can’t. _ Don’t ever do that again.” 61 slammed the door behind him, leaving Baekhyun startled and confused and, honestly, a little scared. 61 was scary when he was angry. And for some reason, he was furious with Baekhyun.

There was a tenseness between the two of them that everyone noticed. The two of them were once the closest of the team but now they were nothing, avoiding each other and not speaking.

“It’s the feelings.” 61 admitted when Baekhyun approached him one night, having snuck out of his own room and into 61’s. He needed an answer. He needed to understand what had happened to them. “Numbers are supposed to prevent feelings, but here they are anyway.”

“What kind of feelings?” Baekhyun asked, confused, seated on 61’s bed while 61 paced the length of his bedroom.

“Feelings for  _ you _ , 4. They’ve gotta stop.”

“What kind of feelings? Jesus, 61, you’re not making any—”

Surprise was an understatement. An  _ extreme _ understatement.

61 was  _ kissing _ him. Masterfully.

Baekhyun reached up and grabbed 61’s wrists, whose hands were cupping his face and angling his head up. He wasn’t sure how long they kissed, but he was panting when they finally parted.

“See?” 61 leaned his forehead against Baekhyun’s. “Dangerous. The numbers don’t mean shit.”

Baekhyun met 61’s eyes as his hand settled on the back of his neck. “Stop thinking about it and kiss me again.”

And he did, again and again all over Baekhyun’s lips and down his neck, pulling his shirt off so he could keep kissing as much of his body as he could.

They didn’t talk about it during the day, not wanting to risk it, but most every night one would sneak into the other’s room for late-night kisses and confessions about their old lives in the darkness. The kissing turned into fucking, and it was two months later that 61 crossed the next line.

“Chanyeol,” he murmured, fingers tracing the letters along Baekhyun’s spine as they laid in silence.

“Hm?” Baekhyun turned his head and cracked his eyes, watching 61’s eyes follow his finger along his spine.

“My name.” 61 looked at Baekhyun. “It’s Chanyeol.”

“Chanyeol.” Baekhyun smiled softly. “I’m Baekhyun. It’s nice to meet you.”

Chanyeol laid down, one shoulder and arm over Baekhyun’s back, encasing him in warmth, and kissed him. “Baekhyun. It suits you.”

“Chanyeol suits you too.” Baekhyun’s eyes looked over Chanyeol’s face.

“I haven’t heard my name since my funeral,” Chanyeol admitted softly. “And I died, uh, seven years ago.”

Baekhyun repeated Chanyeol’s name between breaths, between kisses and between thrusts, as much as he physically could for the rest of the night until they passed out and Baekhyun woke up alone, the pillow beside him still warm and his back still tingling with the letters of Chanyeol’s name.

“Something’s not right here,” Chanyeol whispered to Baekhyun one day as they were in a car, dressed in tuxedos on their way to an event. Their target was one of South Korea’s lesser known billionaires, and the team was instructed to swipe his phone.

“Hm?” Baekhyun glanced over and reached his hand across to squeeze Chanyeol’s thigh. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” Chanyeol shook his head, one hand on the wheel and eyes fixed on the road. “I can’t explain it. Bad feeling.”

Baekhyun simply squeezed Chanyeol’s thigh again and felt for his gun with his free hand. Easy in, easy out, right?

Wrong.

Baekhyun’s almost always wrong.

“Run—go,  _ go, go.” _ Chanyeol pushed Baekhyun from the back and they both took off out of the grand ballroom at a dead sprint. Everything was spiraling. 11 and 85 were working with the target, and Baekhyun managed to put together that X was, too, seconds before everything fell apart. “Get back outside.”

They took down everyone in their way, leaping over bodies and barreling through doorways and jumping down flights of stairs to get out. They didn’t bother trying to get their car back, sprinting out of the large hotel and across the street to lose themselves in the city. Right as they did the top floor of the hotel exploded and they managed to blend in among the chaotic crowd, hand-in-hand as they simply tried to get as far away from the building as they could.

Baekhyun’s legs were the ones that gave out first, Chanyeol had always had more stamina than he did, and Chanyeol had squeezed his hand and helped him stumble into a nearby 24-hour cafe for coffee and to talk about their next move.

Chanyeol tucked Baekhyun into a little corner booth and then went to find a server to order something. Baekhyun sat very still, one of his exhausted legs bouncing up and down with his eyes glued to the front door while he waited for Chanyeol to come back.

He didn’t move but his eyes were sharp on the man who suavely slipped into the booth across from Baekhyun. He was dressed in a tux and he smoothed a hand through his comma-style hair, and Baekhyun quickly placed him from the event.

“Who the fuck—”

“Oh please, 4, this is a civilized establishment.” The man tsked disapprovingly. “Leave your gun hidden, won’t you? The cops have enough on their plates, what with the explosion and all. It is 4, isn’t it?” The man leaned his forearms on the table and leaned forward, voice dropping. “Or would you prefer Baekhyun?”

Baekhyun glanced around, but Chanyeol was out of sight. “How do you know that?”

“Not important. The point is I  _ know.” _ The man eyed him up and down.

“Who are you with?”

“Who am  _ I _ with? Oh, that’s a good one.” The man laughed softly and shook his head, smiling up at a server who set a teacup, saucer, steaming teapot, and an array of teabags in front of him. “No one you’re involved with, I can assure you.”

“Did you set off the bomb?”

“Me? Of course not.” The man hummed softly and took his time thumbing through the bags. “What do you think? Lavender or jasmine?”

Baekhyun fixed him with an “are you kidding me” look, and the man shrugged. “Jasmine it is.” He poured the water in slowly. “One of my men did.”

Baekhyun froze and the man paused, “set off the bomb, that is,” and then he continued pouring.

A gun cocked and the man sighed, setting the teapot back on the table as Chanyeol’s gun pressed against his forehead.

“You have three seconds to tell me what you’re doing here before I blow your skull all over this window.”

“I’m not with your old boss.” The man promised, splaying both his hands flat on the table in a show of peace. “Nor am I with your target. I’m with a group trying to take them both out.”

“Who, exactly?”

“Just like I told your little, well, what are you, anyway? Boyfriends? Fuck buddies? Married?” He looked back and forth between the two of them. “Uh, your little friend, here, that’s not necessary. I’m just here to talk. Can you please put that away? My tea is getting cold.”

Chanyeol glanced at Baekhyun and didn’t move until he got the small nod, keeping his gun in his hand under the table as he slipped into the booth beside Baekhyun.

“Like I was saying,” the man took a sip of his tea and hummed, reaching for the sugar, “one of my men set off the bomb. Sehun—or, well, you know him as 94.”

Baekhyun and Chanyeol looked at each other. “He’s with you?”

“He only joined that little group because I needed someone on the inside. I’d already left. So had the rest of us. He was the only fresh face who could get in without a problem, after I played with the circumstances a bit.”

“You were...one of us?”

“Mhm. Quite literally, too. I was Number 1.” The man rested one hand on the table and rolled his shirt sleeve up until the two across from him could see the tattoo on his forearm right under his elbow—his number, followed by the symbol they all have. Their brand. “I was the first to get away.”

“You got away,” Chanyeol whispered back in awe, gun forgotten. He leaned forward. “How’d you do it?”

“Nevermind that. The explosion was for you two. So  _ you _ could get away.” The man took another sip of his tea and smiled, happy with the flavor. “Sehun—94—believes you two would be a valuable addition to our team.”

“Your team?”

“There are seven of us.” 1 specified. “Myself and Sehun, Jongdae, Yixing, Kyungsoo, Minseok, and Jongin.”

“And you were all once one of us?” Baekhyun clarified. 1 nodded. “All of you but 9, uh, Sehun?”

“We’ve formed our own group.” 1 said, teacup clinking as he replaced it in the saucer. “We’re using our skills that we learned through this program to take down the group you’re both with, as well as other jobs that need our attention.”

“What kind of other jobs?” Chanyeol leaned forward. Baekhyun did, too, as 1’s voice dropped. 

“Remember that regime change in the northern—”

All three of them sat up and went quiet, smiling softly at the server who brought Chanyeol and Baekhyun their coffees.

“Anything else?”

“Nope, we’re good.”

“We’ve got scones. You interested in that?”

“Oh, what kind of scones?” 1 asked, looking up at the girl who smacked her gum and began counting on her fingers.

“Strawberry, blueberry, chocolate—”

“He’s fine.” Baekhyun cut her off with a thin smile. She shrugged and left, and 1 sighed heavily and glared back at him.

“I wanted a scone.”

“You were in charge of that regime change?” Chanyeol whispered tensely.

1 nodded. “My team and I were able to grab the guy’s brother and do a swap, dropping the dictator with the rebels. It was fun. Pretty easy, too. So,” 1 cleared his throat and leaned forward, “it’s late. I’d like to get home, and get as far away from the chaos happening downtown as possible.”

“And you want us to come with you.” Chanyeol finished with a sigh, leaning back and glancing at Baekhyun who seemed to be deep in thought.

“This is a one time offer, gentlemen. Sehun is coming back with me tonight, and then we’ll be moving. You’ll never find any of us again if you say no now.”

“Can we have a minute?” Baekhyun asked after a moment. 1 stood up with a nod.

“I’ll go settle the check. Sehun’s on his way. Make it a quick minute.”

Baekhyun waited until 1 was at the counter talking to the server about their variety of scone flavors to turn to Chanyeol. “I say we take him up.”

Chanyeol nodded, leaning his head close. “Our organization is falling apart now. If we don’t—what are we gonna do?”

Baekhyun shrugged. “I...don’t know. And we’d be able to keep fighting. Doing what X told us we would from the get-go.”

“Let’s just wait for Sehun, make sure he’s not lying about that.” Chanyeol’s hand dropped and he rubbed along Baekhyun’s thigh. “If it’s really Sehun, then…”

Just then the bell over the front door jingled and Baekhyun instinctively reached for his gun, relaxing when he saw 94, Sehun, nod in their direction before heading over to 1.

“Okay.” Baekhyun breathed out. “Okay, let’s do it.”

1 came back then, followed by Sehun, and he paused in front of the two. Chanyeol stood up and then Baekhyun slid out of the booth, taking a deep breath.

“Well?”

“We’re in,” Baekhyun said after a tense pause, exchanging a look with Chanyeol.

1 smiled and held his hand out. “I’m Junmyeon. Welcome to the team.” 

**Author's Note:**

> twitter/cc: emberloey
> 
> stream obsession for clear skin xx


End file.
